> It seems tricky from the gov's perspective because this oligopoly/collusion behavior likely fuels higher GDP and more tax revenue... but ultimately more competition and consumer protection would make for a better country to live in.
Or because the government is working for these oligopolies and not for the people, regardless of the color of their party's logo.
Immigration policies to keep wages low and prop up the housing market. Canada's population grew by a record 1 million in 2022 alone [0]. To give people an idea how much that is, Montreal's total population is 1.7 million.
Immigration went up by a lot in 2022 it's true, but Vancouver's housing situation was already at crisis levels before 2015, before increased immigration, and before this federal government even.
What we've seen in the last few years is that the existing crisis that started in Vancouver has spread to the entire of the country, and it's no surprise because housing policy in the rest of the country is not really any different than Vancouver.
An example of the future is already here, just not evenly distributed I guess.
The problems of systemically not creating enough housing hit Vancouver first, but it was inevitable that they'd hit everywhere else eventually.
Oh, it is definitely by design whatever the factors are.
It's a circular problem too. People buy an expensive house somewhere and it becomes a substantial part of their net worth. Home values decreasing would impoverish them. Home values increasing would enrich them. Homeowners vote a lot more than renters, especially in local elections. So you quickly end up with local governments full of people (most of whom are also local homeowners) incentivized to keep property values high.
The problem must be taken out of the hands of local governments, but even at the national level, there's never going to be political will to slash home values.
TSA emerged in the aftermath of 9/11; TSA is USA specific. But why has every other country has adopted this useless security protocol. I don't understand that.
We probably told them too. I assume US won't accept airplanes into its airspace with passengers that haven't been cleared to a security specification that looks almost identical to what TSA does.
This might be a crazy idea, but maybe... it's not completely useless? Maybe if many countries deem it necessary, and many people who (I assume) have more expertise than most casual observers like us on HN also deem it necessary, maybe they might be right and we might be wrong about how necessary or not this is?
It's not the same level, you don't have to take off your shoes for example.
In some airports (like in Haneda) you don't even have to pull anything out of your bag. Bag on the conveyor belt, yourself through the gate and you're done.
